Creating Immunity to HIV/AIDS?

Over the last several years, there has been a great deal of speculation over the origin of the HIV virus and AIDS. Some people believe that AIDS was created by the CIA to eliminate certain minority groups, while others think that it originated from vaccines unintentionally contaminated with a monkey virus. Some religiously minded people contend that AIDS is God's way of punishing sinners.

Whatever of the origin of AIDS, the fact that HIV is the cause of the disease is considered a given by most scientists, and all public policy and prevention strategies are based on this assumption. However, recent evidence suggests that the reality may not be so simple.

In order to understand the complex workings of the immune system, scientists build mathematical models to explain the progression of disease and the body's response to it. Researchers at Michigan State University, in East Lansing, and Marquette University, in Milwaukee, created a model that replicates what is thought to occur during the initial stages of HIV infection. Based on their model, they believe that the human body can successfully rid itself of the HIV virus, unless other cofactors are attacking the immune system at the same time. Immune-weakening cofactors include such things as malnutrition, infectious agents (e.g., cytomegalovirus, a member of the herpes family), drugs, parasites, etc.

The HIV virus can only reproduce in T cells once they are activated. So, for HIV to gain a foothold, there must be a certain level of immune-challenging cofactors turning on the immune system and activating T cells. Without these stimulating cofactors, HIV cannot reproduce successfully.

Apparently, HIV alone is not the cause of the immune collapse known as AIDS; it's HIV in conjunction with other immune stressors. This may explain why HIV infection rates are highest in developing countries, where inhabitants are often afflicted with parasites or infections. Individuals who experience similar immune system challenges would also be susceptible, such as drug users, people with poor nutrition, and those who have a lot of sex partners and often contract sexually transmitted diseases.

[Editor: This research answers the apparent contradiction between Prof. Duesberg's and other scientists' belief that HIV does not cause AIDS, with the conventional medical position that it does. In a sense, both are right. It also suggests that people who live a healthy lifestyle may be immune to HIV/AIDS. However, a word of caution. This research is far from conclusive, so take care—and remember that even the healthiest of us have weakened immune systems from time to time.]  Based on information in: New Scientist, 9-6-97